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Nalates Urriah

Social Media: A New Scam – Sextortion

Today I find a new scam is popping up on the Internet. Basically blackmail, a really old crime. The media is giving it a new name to describe a specific kind of crime: sextortion.

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Sextortion is the scam of getting someone into an online sex thing where it can be videoed or pictures taken. This is apparently most prevalent on Facebook. The threat is they will show your kink to your family, friends, and/or business associates.

In Second Life™ we have numerous ‘services’ that provide kinky services via Skype and online video. How will one sort the… legitimate (?)… services… well, those actually providing the service and NOT setting you up for blackmail? How will you ever know if you are in a long con?

If you aren’t familiar with the long con, the idea is over time you can suck more people in deeper before there is any hint of wrong doing leaking to scare off new marks. (Think Bernard Madoff.) The goal can either be to get a mark in too deep to easily get out or get more marks involved for a bigger closing hit before running to hide.

So, there is a possibility we will see this type of scam appear in SL. I think it less likely here than in other social media because of general anonymity. But, once a person has a facial image attaching it to a RL name is not that difficult.

So… One really has to think before turning on a camera and getting kinky. While it has worked for Kim, Paris, and Pamala that doesn’t mean it is going to work for you. Nor does the media talk about how their parents handled it or what it did to their relationships. Many employers have fired employees or avoid hiring people because of their published online kink.

While intellectually it shouldn’t matter, provided it is consensual, who you do what with, it does.. Humans are emotional and irrational. We have to understand that and realize we will likely have to deal with humans that want us to conform to their idea of what we should do. In many cases they can make our life difficult. In other cases we may never even know who may be working against us because their strange ideas about right and wrong.